Shatterer of Worlds – J. Robert Oppenheimer. A Life (illustrated. ed. 2006)

Description

The late Abraham Pais wrote the definitive biography of Albert Einstein, “Subtle is the Lord” which won an American Book Award. As a distinguished physicist and Einstein’s colleague, Pais combined a sophisticated understanding of physics with first-hand knowledge of this notoriously private individual, offering rare insights into both. It is his unique double perspective that makes his work so valuable.

Now, in Shatterer of Worlds, Abraham Pais offers an illuminating portrait of another eminent colleague, J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures of modern physics. Pais introduces us to a precocious youth who sped through Harvard in three years, made signal contributions to quantum mechanics while in his twenties, and was instrumental in the growth of American physics in the decade before the Second World War, almost single-handedly putting American physics on the map.